It’s that time of year again. Where the continuity of autonomous league scheduling is altered for an alleged attendance boost in the pursuit of capital revenue gains.

Welcome to Inter-league Play 2010.

Red Sox Nation® (and the Delaware Valley’s bandwagon fans, circa 2004) will be on hand for the final series of this seven game home stand. The Phils have a total of four wins against the Red Sox spanning the last four years. But, this isn’t your ‘Bloody Sock’ or ‘Cowboy Up’ teams from the past. Boston has been plagued by injuries, inconsistency on offense and a lot of bad starting pitching performances.

A model of pitching consistency takes the mound tonight in John Lackey. He won’t over power you, but the veteran has been apt at forcing batted outs away from the strike zone. Lackey is a winner in two of his last three starts despite getting shellacked around in the early innings by Detroit and Toronto. He has been terrific all season and there is no reason to believe he won’t continue to keep the Red Sox in this game tonight.

For the Phillies, Colbert Hamels is looking to build on three stellar outings and continue the clubs successes in May . Pitching more to contact and limiting base runners, the club has been victorious in his last four outings (Hamels 2-0 in that span). Hamels is coming off a 6.2 inning performance in Milwaukee where he scattered two runs on six hits. Hamels pitching to contact has negatively affected him in the later innings in Milwaukee. With the lineup rolled over, a tired Hamels left pitches up resulting in homeruns by Casey McGhee and Corey Hart. While inconsistant throughout the season thus far, the duo of Youkilis and Martinez are riding offense hot streaks coming into this series. They will not miss any mistake Hamels throws at them.

The history of the Phils-Red Sox series has been completely one sided. The Phils need two wins to guarantee a winning home stand while not being able to take two from the Sox since 2003. A sweep? Not out of the question with this version of the Red Sox; the team hasn’t sweep the Sox since 2000. In that series at Veterans Stadium, two walk off doubles by Alex Arias and Kevin Jordan in extra innings sealed those contests.

A feature of the Wachusett Brewing Compnay, Green Monsta is a strong Ale (6.4 % abv) with medium body and a variety of flavor. It pours a copper color getting darker as it settles from bottle to glass. It’s malty, medium-hoppy taste and silky texture make this beer a slow drinker. With its hints of background citris, it is a perfect beer for a perfect night for baseball. Order a cheesesteak stromboli and pour yourself a glass. – By RC

Anybody watching phillies pregame on comcast? When they showed the starting line-up for the first time, they had CLIFF LEE in the Pitchers spot. I was like…what? The second time they showed it they corrected themselves and had Cole there. Somebody was snoozing over at comcast tonight.

first off jimmy is NOT a lead off hitter. in his mind he is. he is a free swinging hitter. vic did great in the first slot. second i dont see that swagger from cole anymore. i will never forget his first start. he was just nasty. not anymore. very very very sad to see.

no chucks. just honest. sorry. jimmy seems to do very well in that 5th or 6th spot. i can drive in runs. does not work the counts. against lefties i would go vic, pol, ut, werth, howard, rollins, iban, ruiz. perfect.

It’s the truth, J-Roll is not a lead off hitter, never was. But I don’t blame J-Roll for being the lead off hitter, I blame Charlie for putting him there. J-Roll is who he is, and Charlie knows exactly what that is, so to continue to put him at the top of the order is mind blowing to me. Especially considering how well Vic was doing in the lead off spot.

The offense again huh? I agree with Manny, WAKE UP. As for Cole, I am pleasantly surprised. Not because I dont think he has “turned the corner” or gotten more consistent, but seeing how Youkilis normally KILLS lefties, I expected him to kill Hamels. Also seeing the Homer in the first, I figured he would flip out. No and No so far. Early yer, but thuse far, very pleasantly surprised.

I wouldnt have expected him to steal with Jimmy batting left. I would have expected it if he was batting right. Its harder to throw to thrid with a Right handed batter. Oh well lets hope this isnt wasted.

Subway makes a cheesesteak…at least in New Mexico. No where near as good as in an Italian Deli in Philly though. Howard may be on TV frequently with his new weight loss. Bye bye Jarrod. Ya gotta love Big Brown !!! I think he’ll hit another tonight. Feel it in my bones.

In decades past we would usually always be excited for a 2 run innings. After the last 3 years, we always expect more now. How times have changed. Yet seeing the slump the offense has been in the last few days, we are excited again about 2 runs in an inning. Oh and DAMN IT Chase knock it off with that first pitch crap. LOL.

I will accept that “first pitch crap” any day of the week, but this brings up another point. Werth hitting like this is a double edge sword anymore. He keeps hitting like this, we have a good chance to run away again. However, he keeps hitting like this, he drives up the cost to keep him, and I dont think RAJ is going to keep him. I think RAJ is all done spending money. 🙁

Very true Repeat! But than again, We couldnt have expected them to stay scoring 7+ runs a game like they did the first 2 weeks, but the inconsistancy kills when you have 2 GREAT outings (Halladay and Moyer) WASTED by only scoring 1 run each game.

It didn’t look like it grabbed completely but Jimmy’s gonna need a few days off to give it some time and then he’ll have to test it out and blah blah blah… hopefully he’s ok because during the short time that he has actually been healthy, he has looked really good.

One other thing… Roy Oswalt requests a trade. Hey Ed, boy do we have a deal for you!

Everyone (at least all the regulars on here ) knows I am normally harsh on Cole. Tody however. flat out WICKED. This is why I can get harsh on him. One game he will look mediocre at best, and then he will come out again and pitch like this against a pretty good team (dont look at their record, is been their pitching that sucks) and look like the Ace we thought he would be after 08. GREAT outing Cole. Yes you read that correctly from me, GREAT outing. Does that answer your question if he should hve gone back out there Ed R? 🙂

A quality outing like this in the first game of the series may come back to help us also. They went to their bullpen first is what I mean. Hmm, which Herndon are we getting tonight? Solid Herndon, or HORRIBLE Herndon?

Here is the other problem. Chances of getting Oswalt if we didnt even keep Lee…about 1%, chances of keeping werth, honestly very low in my opinion, about 20%, but better chances to keep him, and I would rather keep Werth. Oswalt is a beast, yes, but as we saw with Halladay’s last outing, and the same reason Oswalt wants a trade, if the offense doesnt score, it doesnt matter who pitches. That is not to say Werth runs the offense BUT, Jeff said correctly, NO protection for Ryan. It will be MUCH easier for teams to pitch around Howard.

the problem is that you normally need two power arms to knock off an AL power lineup in the WS. See 03 Marlins and 2001 D-backs. Like last yr, we have one. Still hard to bank on Hamels at this point. Love to have the other Roy even if it means just keeping him away from the other contenders. But Werth makes or breaks this lefty heavy lineup. Werth/two more left bp guyys is wayyyyy more important to the Phillies right now.

Now I personally think Baez blows but Charlie disagrees and uses Baez in high pressure situations as a 7-8th inning guys. Ok I don’t like it but I can accept it.

But with that being the case, why not use a guy like Figgy in this situation and save Baez for a day when you might really need him? Just because a guy is used for long relief and spot starts doesn’t mean he can’t be used every so often. How can one expect anything from a guy who goes 18 days since his last work? Which was 1.1 innings by the way.

Dont think those runner mean much, see Braves walkoff with 7 runs in the 9th. Granted It looked like it should have been a ground rule double. We NEED the 3rd out. Especially considering the TYING run is up to bat right now. Congratulations to the Phillies Bullpen (Baez/Romero). We are DEAD. Grand slam right here.

wxdavid, I say one comment like that and you come back like that? They have a great blog for ignorrant @$$ed like you. Its called mets.com. Kiss me @$$ bro. You are obviously new here. Ask Repeat, or Ed R, or Manny, the other Regulars.

As for the notion that Brian’s a negative dude…I disagree. We all get nervous with this team, especially with this bullpen. And honestly, if Baez or Romero are in the game and you aren’t nervous then you aren’t watching. Pretty sure even the most optimistic of fans get concerned when those two take the mound.

Everyone just chill out. Phils won and are 26-15, 2nd best record in baseball. 4.5 up on the Fish and Tomahawk chops…all the while with Happ making 2 starts all year, Jimmy has played like 6 games, Lidge has been basically non existent, Madson did nothing, Blanton is still getting his footing, Baez predictably sucks, and Ibanez has been off to a pretty disheartening slow start…all that, and this team has the 2nd BEST RECORD IN BASEBALL!!! Pretty awesome stuff.

Yet another sound paragraph from Ed R, and yet again, thank you. I know I can get negative, but I try not to be the constant negative. I recall last year after the first 2 weeks, in last place, some people were FLIPPING OUT and calling for people to get benched, and the team sucks, and all that other junk. THEY are the people who often needed to leave, and most of them have. I have Ed R, Tracey, Brooks I would also like to say myself at times have driven them away by talking baseball with facts, with our Phillies Bias of course, but we are all passionate fans. I do disagree with one thing though Ed. Dont you mean Tomahawk HACKS. LOL.

Brian – sometimes the *#(*@ we hear from newbies is just too much to handle and the trigger gets pulled – we watch the game, we love the Phils, we know why they lost to the stinkin’ Yanks – etc…
Back to the game. Dingers by Howard and Werth, a gem by Hamels – what more can you ask for!
How about Ryan Howard’s stats for May so far –
27 for 76 (.355), 15 runs, 15 rbi and 4 hrs. I thought we needed to wait until August to see these numbers? Do you think Werth is pushing him?

First time I’ve been to your blog. Why do you have Cole’s record as
(1-2) at the top of the page? I came here from 97.3 FM’s facebook page mainly to see if anyone else commented on the W/L stat. I didn’t
see the game but seems like 2008 Hamels is back!